{Redefined}
Ray, in a last-ditch attempt to prevent causing harm to the creature that had somehow grown attached to him in the past 24 hours, clenched his fist and shattered his light blade.
This, however, would not save the girl from being tackled to the ground like a damn ragdoll.
Gloved hands shot to Ray's head to nurse the headache that was slowly developing. As he lay there, writhing in pain, he began spitting out a string of curses that would have had Ozpin reaching for the censor button.
The beowolf wasn't dead, but in its new bipedal form, it was still much easier to kill as Scarlet – who miraculously suffered no injuries and was on her feet in seconds – mercilessly stabbed Crimson Brigade's spear tip through its skull, ending it quickly.
"Great job, Scarlet. A fucking plus." Ray grumbled sarcastically as he shakily stood up. His eyes were closed and a sharp wince indicated his pained state.
"Oh my Gods! I-I'm so sorry!" She stuttered apologetically, her hands cupped over her cheeks and her face turned beet red.
Ray slowly opened his eyes and caught sight of Scarlet's vermillion pools.
Then the boy's shoulders slumped.
He literally just launched himself off of a cliff at over one hundred miles per hour in order to get rid of the girl and there she was, seemingly without a partner, tracking his eyes with her own.
The hacker groaned in defeat. He was now stuck with the bane of his existence whether he liked it or not.
Let's just say he felt less than content with this circumstance.
Scarlet on the other hand, despite the guilty feeling that ran through her mind from unintentionally hurting Ray's head – and pride – was absolutely elated with the situation.
They were partners now for the next four years. This meant plenty of time to get to know Ray and hopefully break him out of his conceited shell.
In her eyes, the odds couldn't have been any better, she honestly couldn't have cared less who she was teamed up with, so long as one of them was Ray.
"So, what now, partner?" She asked with a huge, triumphant grin slapped across her face.
Ray cringed at the term she used to address him.
This was going to be worse than he thought…
"First of all," He began, raising his index finger to make a point, "if you ever call me that again, you can eat shit and die." Scarlet's expression faltered slightly, but her grin still remained.
"Secondly, we have to get to the temple. We are currently seven hundred metres away, which while it doesn't sound like a lot-"
"It will be made longer because of the concentration of Grimm between us and our objective!" Scarlet inadvertently blurted out before placing a finger on her chin in deep thought.
"Our best solution would probably be to avoid any hostiles if possible, but try not to deviate too far from our chosen path. A direct route would be the fastest and the most logical way to reach our objective before safely retreating back to the cliff to complete our initiation." Scarlet's mouth fired out words faster than a machine gun.
She spoke so fast, that Ray decided it wasn't worth the effort to remind her that she rudely interrupted him during the middle of his sentence.
Sighing, he resigned to his fate and held out an open palm in the direction of the temple.
"After you..."
"After that display on the cliff, you'd think Mister Chroma would be more... resistant to Miss Rubine's unintentional assertiveness." Glynda Goodwitch critically commented as both her and Ozpin monitored the recently formed pair.
Ozpin allowed himself to give a thoughtful hum. Ray Chroma hadn't been seen in years, so as to why he was here at the Beacon initiation left much to be desired.
After his father's passing and his mother remarrying a Faunus man, the boy and his cousin, Lylac, disappeared from the world's eye. Taking with them a large sum of cash and various artefacts highly sought after by many an enthusiastic archaeologist.
To see the boy here, now, was most suspicious.
"I believe there is more to be seen from this young man, Glynda. It is in our best interest to keep an eye on him. Those that go into hiding do not just spontaneously reappear without good reason."
Though the headmaster had to admit, circumstances would have needed to have been dire in order for this boy to return to relevancy.
Glynda spared a moment to glance at Ozpin curiously, but chose to say nothing when the man refused to reciprocate the action.
"I never pegged him as a hide and seek champion, if I do say so myself. But his appearance certainly has you concerned, doesn't it?" The blonde woman questioned, her expression neutral, yet her voice laced with tender worry.
"More than you know, Glynda. Orion Chroma was indeed an intelligent man, leaving everything he owned to his son, but I doubt even he could have predicted the outcome after Mirage remarried. This has me deeply concerned. Ray is not like his father and given his... unorthodox upbringing... he may not view the world in the same light Orion did."
The woman couldn't help but frown at Ozpin's reply. If this boy had the man worried, the chances of him being a threat were quite high.
Orion was not the easiest person to compromise with, and if his son was anything like him, the probability of having another stubborn Chroma left a bitter taste in the deputy's mouth.
She watched as Ozpin raised two fingers to his cheek, the pain from his earlier cut clearly still lingering.
"This is going to be an interesting year."
Ray was appalled, Scarlet, the girl he once thought was completely incapable of harming a fly, was in actual fact, a complete and total nerd.
Battle strategies erupted out of her mouth constantly, it was like listening to a 24/7 public service announcement, but its sole purpose was for killing Grimm. Each step Ray took felt more draining – both mentally and physically – than the last, and his will to live slowly diminished with every passing second.
As they walked through the dense forest, Ray had purposefully tuned out Scarlet's rambling about the 'best way to kill a Geist in a low-light environment' for the sake of his patience.
He already knew how to kill a damn Geist; blast it with incredibly bright light to burn out its eye, then force-feed your sword through its face as it fruitlessly attempted to delay the inevitable by flying away.
Ridiculous… it's as if the red-headed midget thought he was-
"Wait."
Ray was prevented from going any further by Scarlet holding him in place with her right arm.
"Uh… Scarlet?" Ray questioned with uncertainty, his eyes tracking her as she systematically scanned the area for something only she could sense.
"Down!" Cried the polearm wielding brat as she forcefully tackled Ray to the ground.
A black blur shot over the pair as Scarlet laid suggestively on top of Ray, shielding the boy from a danger he had yet to process.
Within seconds, the pair were surrounded by a vast quantity of nightmare fuel.
Six, no, seven Ursai burst into the clearing like a stampede, quickly circling Ray and Scarlet in a unified stratagem.
Ray, whilst still on the ground, was still suffering from the aftermath of being tackled to the floor.
"Oh great, so this is how I die? Fantastic! What a fulfilling life I've lived..." Ray's lament went completely unheard as Scarlet was on her feet and ready before Ray even registered her actions.
"What…?"
Ray couldn't see what was happening clearly, the shock from Scarlet's brute force still clouding his mind, though the sounds of metal tearing through flesh and sinew could be heard as he rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself up onto his knees.
As his eyes adjusted, he could see inky, disgustingly-black blood splattering the ground around him and his clothing became marked with a few drops of the vile fluid, desecrating his olfactory senses with a repulsive stench.
The limp, degrading corpse of an Ursa Major quickly filled Ray's field of vision and the boy stumbled back onto his rear as it took him by surprise.
"What's going on?!" Ray yelled out in an attempt to gain any semblance of perception in the hectic situation, though his cry fell on deaf ears as Scarlet began opening fire with her repeating cannon, tearing into the rear of a crippled Ursa with multiple, loud, concussive booms.
Chunk after chunk of dislodged flesh was sent flying through the air in a myriad of sporadic directions.
Ray could only make a meek effort to swat the revolting giblets away from him as they littered the ground and the air in his proximity became heavily polluted by thick smoke.
This also served to corrupt the once fresh air with the smell of rotting Grimm.
The hacker was forced to shield his ears from the commotion as he snapped out of his stupor and scrambled towards cover. He had to duck and weave between two of the creatures before he came across an upturned tree with bulging, intertwining roots piercing out of the dirt.
He threw himself over the thickest of these roots and slammed into the ground on the other side, the sounds of metal clashing barbarously against bone and claw prominent in the background.
The boy took a couple of seconds to desperately catch his bearings and breathe before jumping up and spinning around to bear witness to Scarlet suddenly flying into one of the Ursai and literally tearing it a new one with the business end of her bardiche.
Ray could only stand there idly and watch.
She was incredible…
Ruthlessly massacring the Grimm like cannon fodder.
On her face was an almost maniacal grin and Scarlet actually seemed to be giggling somewhat. Her eyes shone in an unparalleled crimson gleam, like something inside her was slowly, but surely charging up.
Ray blinked once.
Then twice.
And on the third repetition, his jaw dropped as he attempted to make sense of the situation.
Of all the expressions of emotion she could be displaying, Scarlet Rubine was actually laughing as she fought for her dear life…
"Well, I guess you can't spell 'slaughter' without 'laughter'..." Ray commented to himself sarcastically. Staring wide-eyed at the show like a deer caught in the headlights.
While the boy was more than willing to leap into the fray to assist his partner, his voice of reason suggested that she probably didn't need the help.
"You've gotta be fucking kidding me..."
Scarlet had finished disposing of the fifth Ursa by ramming her spear tip at the bottom of her weapon through its chest and violently twisting before she performed a meticulous feat of acrobatic prowess by backflipping over the sixth beast and landing solidly on the creature's back.
Then, without mercy, she stabbed the dual pronged bardiche blades into the back of its skull and pulled the damn trigger.
Let's just say that the caretakers of this forest – assuming there were any – are going to have a God-damned field day cleaning up the black and pink bloodied mess left in result of her brutal execution.
Bits of flesh, bone and grey matter shot out of the front of the creature's head as it literally imploded due to the cavitation bubble that formed.
The headless body of the Ursa went limp and crumpled onto the ground, smoke and particulate billowed out of every orifice and pore before it settled there like a wet rag.
Scarlet, on the other hand, spared a quick moment to wipe some of the pitch-black blood from her frenzied eyes and leapt at the final Grimm.
Ray observed in absolute, undivided attention, studying every single minute twitch the crimson girl made as she swiftly rolled to the left to avoid an overextended swipe of the creature's clawed paw and rammed her bardiche into the left of its ribcage.
Lifeblood coated the Vacuan titanium blades and their hydrophobic surfaces allowed the viscous liquid the effortlessly slide off of them as she viciously yanked her weapon out of the chest of her lumbering foe, twirled to the right to avoid its other paw and amputated the beast in a flawless underhand swing that cut through flesh, muscle and sinew with questionable ease.
The Ursa let out an agonized, blood curdling roar before trying to bite at the girl's head.
Ray's mouth hung ajar like a bear trap, he felt like he was in the twilight zone here.
Every. Single. Educated assumption he made of this girl was completely and utterly blown out of the water with the force of a splitting atom.
He was conflicted, and to a certain extent, fearful of her abilities.
Somehow. For some unforeseen reason. Scarlet had managed to get into a wrestling match with what remained of the Ursa and had sent the creature skidding towards Ray's feet, where he decided to shrug, summon a light blade, and stabbed the creature through the mouth.
Ending its misery in less than a second.
The use of the word 'pity' was uncommon for Ray. Again, it was not something he threw around lightly, but the boy actually felt a modicum of the aforementioned emotion for the seven Ursai Scarlet had torn into like a ravaging whirlwind.
She had ripped into every single beast with a ravenous hatred, and yet, the girl adorned an excited expression like a damned badge of honour as she nonchalantly wiped away the ebony blood that stained her face and attire. Her crimson locks swept through her fingers as she pulled her hair out of her slightly flushed face and made herself more presentable.
Scarlet collapsed her tool of destruction and hung it back on her belt as she calmly walked towards Ray with a naive attitude belonging to that of a child.
The most impressive thing though? Biometric scans of her body in tandem with Ray's feed from her scroll told him that her Aura didn't suffer a single scratch.
One hundred percent.
What the living fuck?
The hacker actually took a couple of healthy steps backwards as she came within arm's reach of the boy, his face wearing a frightened expression as he continued to vacantly stare at her.
"Who are you? And what have you done to Scarlet?"
Author's note:
So, Scarlet and Ray are partners.
Big surprise!
She's also a total badass, too. Who knew, huh?
To be quite honest, I don't blame Ray for being so taken back by her impressive fighting skills, though, seven and a half years of strict training will do that to someone.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter, great things await over the horizon that I'm sure you'll enjoy.
Have a good one!
-Hydra